European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - May 23, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Midnight Oil helps fuel the a Ozzie Rock Boom. Australian band pet pm of sings of Poh tical issues Trothe land Dow Quot under. . Considine Baltimore Sun because America has the largest pop music Market in the world it s often tempting for foreign bands a particularly those with a growing audience in the United states a to adjust their sound for stateside listeners. That does t mean american zing the music necessarily because few listeners expect to hear songs about baseball and hot dogs from folks whose Home entertainment is soccer and sausages. Still its not unusual to find bands taking what the British refer to As a Quot transatlantic Quot approach making sure that what turns up on record is neither English nor american but something safely in Between. At the moment there a no real equivalent for australian rockers no Quot trans Pacific Quot sound to assume. But even if there were Midnight Oil would probably be the last band Down under to try it. Quot we re unbridled ozzies Quot says Singer Peter Garrett using the favored colloquialism for australian. Quot our music is tied in and always has been tied in to what a been going on at  True enough. This is after All a band whose first . Hit from the 1988 album diesel and dust was a song about aboriginal rights called Beds Are burning and who followed that single up with the dead heart a song about overdevelopment in the australian Outback. Nor is the bands current album Blue sky mining any less parochial with lyrics about australian labor disputes Industrial development and foreign policy. Yet diesel and dust sold More than a million copies in the United states while Blue sky mining moved 500,000 copies in its first two months of release. So obviously these songs must mean something to somebody. What though Garrett Isnit entirely sure but he does think it has something to do with the Overall vitality of modern australian Rock. Quot i think its probably helpful not to look at us in isolation Quot he suggests Over the phone from a hotel in new York. Quot people in Europe were saying to us a Why is it now that one of the major creative outpouring centers of Rock is Australia a and in fact the inroads into Europe of australian bands has been quite significant at All  what has sparked this Ozzie Rock Boom says Garrett a is just australian geography and history and this frustration Over not being Able to make something of your own of always having to look at a poster of the rolling stones or whoever whenever you go into a record  As a result australian bands have taken on an almost Pioneer spirit Quot really just forging it out of the Basic raw materials at hand and starting the process of playing to people Quot he says and that As much As the Strum of their guitars or the insistence of the beat is what gives these bands such an Edge. For Midnight oils audience however there san added attraction a the band s a blushing interest in politics. Again much of what the group sings about has a decidedly australian slant to it and Garrett does t expect the average american fan to follow it All. Even so the Singer gets a Strong sense from the groups audience that one of the things people like about Midnight oils output is that unlike most pop singles these songs Are actually about something. Quot i read the new York times this morning Quot says Garrett Quot and saw some of the outrageous things that various leading members of your government Are saying about the environment. And it struck me that there Are very few places a or non print Media places a that you can go and get a dose of survival politics with a sense of Hope or anger or whatever about them. A i think Midnight Oil is probably one of those places. And if people respond to that in any Way Well consider it some level of achievement. 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